There is a major difference between Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei Skripal, which is not being reflected in the media. Litvinenko was a good man who attempted to expose abuses of power within Russia, in defence of the rights of Russians. Skripal is a traitor who sold the identities of Russian agents abroad to the UK, in exchange for hard cash. This may very well have caused the deaths of some of those Russian agents operating in conflict zones. If this is indeed a poisoning, there are a great many people who may want Mr Skripal dead – nor in this murky world should we overlook the fact that he must have known interesting things about his MI6 handlers. “Litvinenko II” is rather too pat and obvious, and could be a false flag set-up.

I certainly hope that Skripal, his companion, and anybody else affected, recover fully from whatever has attacked them. But I moved long ago past a world view where my country are the “goodies” and Russians are the “baddies”, and instead I reached an understanding that those in power oppress the people, universally. The idea that the elaborate spy games between world intelligence agencies are a battle between right and wrong, is for the story books. They are all wrong, all part of a system where power over people is controlled for the benefit of the wealthy, and battles are over hard resources, whichever “side” you are on.

But even if he was once, at the time of his exposure to polonium 210 he was in this country. He was probably smuggling polonium on behalf of Berezovsky. The trail takes you to Israel, Italy everywhere. Check it out.

It’s a False Flag black op of course, or did Putin just happen to decide that it would be a great idea to poison Skripal and his daughter on the very same day as celebrations were being held in Russia and elsewhere to mark 100 days to go to the World Cup football. Yes, of course, I mean you would, wouldn’t you!

And why would the Sun and the Mail etc (the Establishment’s propaganda machine) be disseminating the falsehood that his wife died in a suspicious car crash, when in fact she died of cancer in 2012, as reported on Newsnight last night by a journalist who spoke to “family and friends”, and also in The Guardian yesterday. For obvious reasons of course!

The following PR event for the ‘100 Days To Go’ celebrations – just one of many that had been organised – was obviously arranged weeks before it happened, so are we really supposed to believe that Putin would arrange to have Skripal and his daughter poisoned on the very same day. Yeah, of course he would, wouldn’t he!

“If the American people ever find out what we have done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us.” George HW Bush

He said it of course in the full knowledge that the ‘American people’ are highly unlikely to learn of what they’ve done, and that even if they DID, they were never gonna get the chance to ‘chase them down the street’ etc, and the British Establishment knows of course that the same applies to them.

The fundamental problem from the British perspective is that we opened up London to all comers. Very few questions were asked about where their money was coming from. And that remains the same today, because people can still come from outside the country and use anonymous companies to buy up property and businesses. London is attractive for Russians because it is only a four hour flight from Moscow, we speak English, you can send your kids to good schools. But if they felt the British were going to come in and do something about this money, you would see it be whisked away overnight to somewhere else. There are always places to hide this stuff.

From what I’ve read the Chinese communist party want to keep Xi in power for as many terms as he is a useful leader. No doubt they will at some stage replace him with a more useful candidate. How is that life long?

or with Pakistan where there was open military rule and dictators were supported by the west, because it was beneficial to them. I fully agree with you, it is all about power and to keep it, those in power will do everything and anything to fool the public in the name of democracy. It is always the other guys fault. Russia seems to be winning the world public opinion lately. The west is worried, so start the blame game. For Russia to be blamed someone has to create events. In this case they had the russian ex spy who can be spared. It is interesting to note american media has not taken the lead, Theresa May is in trouble, she has to divert attention. By this way she is trying to kill two birds with one stone. We commoners will never know the truth.

I think Sharp Ears that is unlikely that these poor people will recover. If our spooks were involved in any way, and they are handling the investigation, then the Russian ex-spy and his daughter are hardly going to be given a chance to testify as to who did it.

What really stinks is that from day one Russia was blamed by our media. That is the same media that have stopped Russian athletes from competing in sporting events with a catalogue of lies and misinformation.

Just for your information, because most people do not see facts our media does not want them to see, Russia was 19th in WADA’s own list of doping offences for 2013. Other than China its athletes were tested more than any other country. The USA athletes were tested just over 7,000 times while Russian athletes were tested 12,500 times. Russia has a population of 143m while the USA has a population of 327m. This means per capita Russian athletes were tested four times more often than US athletes.

Thanks. It was noticeable that the BBC commentators at Pyeongchang were irritated when the Russians did well, especially in the ice skating. They also jeered at the presence of the North Korean cheerleaders. The BBC is not called the state broadcaster for nothing.

The likes of Williamson, the laughable, but dangerous, appointee to the Defence Ministry, following the even more laughable Fallon and Hammond, would like a bit of war.

I have heard respectable reports that Litvinenko was shuttling radioactive Polonium over to Israel. Traces were found on planes of British Air, also, as he was apparently a double agent working for Israel.

I see his ‘friend’ Valery was interviewed and admitted he had begun to bodyswerve Mr S due to his having dangerous contacts with Russian Intelligence, sometimes at the Embassy itself. So, WHY would the embassy want to speak to a traitor? Why would they speak to him on a regular basis? Not to chat about old times, that’s for sure, not to try and help his daughter get a visa either. So, had he been a ‘triple’ agent??

Le Carre’s work suggests that truth is whatever the Establishment decides it is. Would recommend also the 1984 (!!) book- not the film- by John Hale, The Whistleblower. The world of spooks is quite foreign to ordinary people, whether the “good guys” are “our boys” or devilish aliens.

Interesting, Craig. Your thesis is played out in the US TV series ‘Person Of Interest’, in the character of Greer, the Englishman whose adherence to GB has been cut. He sees nation states as a front for capital to use.

Craig Murray has shown himself to be one of the rarities of political commenting – sound thinking based on a readiness to exercise the mind and examine all possibilities, based on evidence where possible, facts and knowledge – yet alert to false flags and distortion, and the possibility that different motivations of any or all ‘players’ may influence behaviour and interpretation. All is set out clearly and logically, without ignoring quantitative or qualitative factors – well written too – sometimes ‘spiced’, with a wee twist of humour. “Russian to judgement” highlighting the knee-jerk reaction of the PM’s premature and absurd threat to wage war on Russia, for example, brought a smile to my lips!